'It's kind of like a funeral' says founder Harry Schmidt

By Craig Young Reporter-Herald Staff Writer

Posted:
03/25/2013 05:51:45 PM MDT

LOVELAND -- Nostalgia and compassion drew some of the visitors checking out auction items at the former Schmidt's Bakery & Delicatessen on Monday, but most of the people working their way through the building were there for the bargains.

"This is a great find for people in the bakery business," said Brandon Giovannoni, who's helping to launch a gluten-free bakery in Lone Tree.

Giovannoni was looking at walk-in freezers, baking pans, racks and other equipment in the cavernous kitchen of the closed business at 808 SW 14th St.

The state seized Schmidt's on Jan. 8 for nonpayment of taxes, and the owners filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy Feb. 6. The filing lists 102 creditors, including 40 employees, and liabilities of more than $814,000.

Auction Closes Tuesday

Denver-based auction and liquidation company Dickensheet & Associates started its online-only auction of Schmidt's equipment on behalf of U.S. Bankruptcy Court on Friday and opened the building for inspection Monday.

Brandon Giovannoni checks out bakers racks and other items up for auction at Schmidt's Bakery & Delicatessen in Loveland on Monday. Giovannoni is helping to start up a gluten-free bakery in Lone Tree and was hoping for some good deals on equipment.
(
Jenny Sparks
)

Bidding will close at 11 a.m. Tuesday on the first items, with bids on each of the 680 lots ending in succession after that, according to auction company owner Bill Dickensheet.

He estimated it would take five hours Tuesday to finish the auction, which is taking place at dickensheet.com.

"All items have to be disposed of," he said. "Everything except for what belongs to the building."

One of the visitors Monday morning was Harry Schmidt, who founded the German-style bakery and deli in Berthoud in 1982 and sold it to its current owners in 2011.

"It's kind of sad, isn't it?" Schmidt said.

"I think the community and the employees and everybody doesn't deserve to see this happen. It just breaks my heart," he said. "It's kind of like a funeral."

Schmidt, wearing a denim Schmidt's Bakery & Delicatessen jacket with "Harry" stitched on the front, talked sadly with some former customers. And he answered questions from bidders interested in buying the equipment that once was his.

"I Want to Give Harry a Hug"

Loveland resident Vicki Johnson, who volunteers at Sky Ranch Lutheran Camp west of Fort Collins, was looking casually at kitchen equipment that might prove useful at the camp. But mainly, she said, she showed up for "TLC support" of Schmidt, whom she knows from church.

"I want to give Harry a hug," she said.

Others jotting notes and taking pictures with their cellphones included a woman whose sister is a cake decorator in Longmont, a man who owns a restaurant in Greeley, a Berthoud woman whose husband is president of a wholesale meat business in Denver, the owner of a Loveland catering company and some people who were just looking for sturdy tables and chairs for their homes.

The items in the dining rooms, retail area and kitchen were impressively diverse -- wire shelves holding half-used containers of spices, two antique accordions, stacks of baking sheets and cake pans, German beer steins, walk-in freezers, huge ovens, 51/2-foot-tall mixers, buckets of knives and metal bins still filled with sugar and flour.

Because the restaurant was locked up in the middle of a workday, most everything was frozen in time, down to the dusting of flour on the butcher-block table.

Rotting Food

When Dickensheet employee Scott Sattel and his crew showed up last week to prepare the property for auction, he said they found hundreds of pies and cakes molding on the racks and deli meats rotting in the cases.

"When we cracked this baby open, it was bad," he said. "I saw mold I've never seen before."

Sattel said his workers filled two 40-cubic-yard roll-off trash containers with spoiled food. "It was kind of sad to throw it away."

Dickensheet said all proceeds of the auction will go to a U.S. trustee charged with liquidating the property and arranging payment of debtors.

Harry Schmidt, right, the original owner Schmidt's Bakery & Delicatessen, talks with Bill Dickensheet, left, owner of Dickensheet & Associates, the company auctioning off equipment at the bakery in Loveland on Monday.
(Jenny Sparks)

OUARZAZATE, Morocco (AP) — The people are restive, the priesthood is scheming and a fanatic band of insurgents known as the zealots are plotting assassinations — and now to make matters worse, the body of a condemned cult-leader known as Jesus has disappeared from the tomb, apparently following some ancient prophecy. Full Story